The invention relates to a bullet trap and, more particularly, a trap for retaining bullets in a container with randomly-aggregated swatches of polyacrylamide or like fiber material, and relates to a method of using the bullet trap as a safety device during the loading and unloading of firearms.
One tradition of the American West, the revolver, has long influenced the pistol firearms most used by the American military, police, and sportsman. Revolvers are loaded by swinging the revolving bullet chamber out of alignment with the barrel and firing mechanism of the pistol. They thus present relatively little danger of accidentally discharging one of the bullets during. It is still possible for a revolver to discharge accidentally during, however, particularly if the revolver is carelessly handled as the revolving chamber is swung back to the firing position.
In Europe, and now increasingly in the United States, automatically-loading pistols or autoloaders are often used by the military, police, and sportsman. One of the advantages of these firearms is the ability to replace the bullet in the firing chamber quickly and thus achieve rapid, automatic or semi-automatic firing of up to sixteen successive bullets at one loading. For a number of reasons, including cost and achieving more rapid initial enablement of the weapon and more rapid repeat firing, the safety mechanisms for preventing discharge of such weapons are becoming increasingly delicate and liable to malfunction in such a way as to allow the weapons to discharge accidentally during loading and unloading. This susceptibility of magazine fed autoloading pistols, combined with their increasingly wide-spread use, particulatly in America, has increased the danger of injury from accidental discharge during loading and unloading.
One conspicuous example of this danger arises in the locker rooms of police agencies which provide their officers with auto-loading pistols. A number of police officers preparing for work on the same shift often congregate in thses rooms and load their pistols there in preparation for duty. Even with careful handling of their pistols, the accidental discharge of any of officer's gun during loading and unloading dangerously ricochets a bullet around the room ane exposes all of those present to unnecessary risk of injury.
The same interests in rapid-firing, light-weight, high capacity magazine fed firearms have also promoted the development and use of automatically-loading, repeat-firing rifles, submachine guns, machine pistols and shot guns for the military, police and sportsman. These firearms are subject to the same risk of accidental discharge as automatically-loading pistols. Because of their higher power, however, they present even more danger.
The rapid-firing rifles developed for the military and law enforcement agencies also fire successive bullets at very short intervals. An accidental discharge from such firearms therefore presents the danger, not of a single bullet, but of a burst of many bullets. Even with the best of safety mechanisms, therefore, the danger from an accidental discharge of such firearms is extreme.
The danger from an accidental discharge of an autoloading recreational firearm is also greater, not only because of its greater fire power, but also because sportsmen, regretably, often do not have the training in loading and unloading, safety procedures, and respect for their firearms instilled in the military and police. Recently, for example, a sportsman is said to have had the misfortune to have been loading and unloading a powerful firearm carefully aimed at the floor, but to have nevertheless injured his own child in the room below when the firearm accidentally discharged during loading and unloading.
For all of these reasons, and for all of the military, law enforcement and recreational uses of firearms, there therefore is a need for a bullet trap at which the firearm could be directed during loading and unloading for safely trapping any bullets accidentally discharged during the loading and unloading operation. As used herein, bullets are intended to include any type of projectile discharged from a firearm, whether BB from an air gun, bullet, or shot from a shotgun.
Bullet traps are known for other uses. One well-known uses is in ballistics testing. For such use, however, it is of course necessary to preserve the ballistic markings on the bullet for analysis. The bullet traps designed for this purpose therefore provide for gently stopping the bullet without damage to the bullet. Gently decelerating the bullet, in turn, has required large water- or fiber-pile-filled bullet traps. They are too big and heavy for location in the field, the locker room, the home, and the many other places where firearms may be loaded. Such bullet traps are therefore unsuitable for a safety device at which a firearm may be aimed during loading and unloading.